Journey
by raisethecolours
Summary: Even though fate seems to be spitting in my face and kicking me to the ground, I will stay strong. For the baby, for him, and for myself.    rated T because I'm scared
1. Fate and Monsters

Journey.

The sun shines and sparkles on the sea, as it always does. I try to smile as I squint into the sun, try to appreciate this day. But I can't. I try to appear happy.

But on the inside, I'm dying.

Why is it that when I need him most, he isn't here?

Why is it that when I finally know my feelings for him, and him for me, we can't be together?

I think back on those years we could have been together, so many years spent looking blindly at him, as if he was nothing to me.

I cry for him. I cry for our unborn child. I cry for me.

What have I done to deserve this fate? Why is it me that has to bear this burden that seems so insurmountable?

I try to look to the future. Ten years to the future. I see me, with child in hand, finally seeing him again. It's painful, how I can remember every line on his face, every part of his body. I know his face will never leave me. I could never forget, never move on.

I look even farther into the future. Ten years pass again and again until he returns. He looks the same, but I can see my reflection in the seawater and I have changed. I have grown older. And while he stays perfectly preserved, neither dead or undead, I see myself steps from his arms, withering away into death.

Suddenly, a kick comes from my stomach. I feel the baby stir inside me. It's almost as if he knew what I was thinking.

He seems to kick a thought out of the dusty darkness of my mind.

I have to stay positive, for the baby. I have to stay awake, alive, happy for him. For me, too. And for Will, of course.

It was a cruel twist of fate that took him away from me. And I'm not going to lose him again because of my own actions. I'm not going to drown in the sorrows that surround me like monsters, with glare of eye and glint of teeth. Rather, I'll take out my sword, however rusty it may be, and protect myself for my own sake, and for the baby.

Until the day when I see him again, I will stay strong. Until the moment we meet, and our lips touch I will not stray from the watching post. My eyes will remain fixed on that horizon forever, however hopeless it feels, and count down the days til we meet again.

I will watch. I will wait. But I can't forget to live.

AN: This is in no way a perfect story, haha. I was just sitting at my computer and the first sentence or so popped into my head and I had to finish it :) that's just how I am. Review please? None of this belongs to me, by the way.


	2. Four Hearts

A strong kick comes from my bulging stomach. My hand goes to it and even though my ears are ringing and I'm sweating from the weight of this baby, I smile.

Every time the baby kicks me, I relish in the pain.

My life is not easy. It never was. But every time hurt washes over me like the tide, I remember William. My poor, poor William, stuck at sea for ten years. At least I can enjoy the land, the smell of fresh flowers and baking bread. At least I can enjoy this child. I can watch him grow, watch him walk on wobbly legs and speak his first words. William will never see that, and those moments cannot be taken back.

I flatten my dress down so that the sizable bump that has become my belly bulges through the folds. I press my hand to my stomach and can almost feel the baby's heart beat, quiet and faint but _there_. I take several painful steps up the steps of my little cottage by the sea, and let the beating of its' heart guide me. Before I know where I'm going, I find myself in my room. The bed is soft, and I sigh as if I have sat down upon it, but my feet move me to the bedside cabinet. The cabinet is within an arms length from the bed, and I open a severe lock on the bottom drawer with ease.

I have done it before.

A chest meets my eyes, polished and sparkling in the glow of the moon coming through the open window. I pull the key from the inside of my dress and fit it into the lock.

_Click_

A thump- thump rings through the darkness. And though I can barely see it, I know his heart is there.

I don't wish to look at it, I only wish to hear it. I lay down on my bed and let the chest lay open beside me. I close my eyes and give myself into the night, into the silence. All I can hear is the beating of my heart, of his heart and of the babies, all three ringing through my ears like a chorus of bells.

But what's that? I open my eyes. Another sound has come, something smaller and quieter but most definitely a sound. A sound that adds another melody to this chorus of bells.

My hands press to my stomach again and confirmation rings upon my touch.

A fourth heart beat lingers on through my head. The thought causes me to wince and smile at the same time.

And then there were four, I thought.

I close my eyes and let the hearts beat on in the dark.


	3. Like the Wind

Why must they stare?

Their golden hawks-eyes stare into my soul and their whip tongues lash out harsh words as if they knew me.

But they don't know me at all. How can they? How can they pretend to understand what I've gone through, what I'm _going_ through?

I open the door to the bakery and a bell jingles in a far off, distant place. The baker smiles a warm smile, and when he does his apron bulges. He hands me a loaf of still-warm bread, and I place two silver coins upon the counter.

I find myself relishing in the normalness of this transaction, as if the man I love is not cursed and I am not pregnant with twins he will never see grow up. But all the normalcy fades when the baker's children enter.

They may be poorer than I am, but that does not stop their mouths. They weren't trying to be quiet when they spoke to each other, loud enough so that I could hear even as I left the bakery.

"That's Elizabeth Swann. She's pregnant but she hasn't got a husband. She used to be the governor's daughter but he left her."

My hand stops on the door knob.

I want to turn and scream. To yell and shout and scream at them, to tell them truth about me. But what would that do?

"Nothing." I said to myself as I walked out the door.

I tried to block out the whispering with my heavy breathing.

"Just one more stop." I said, looking at my list as I walked into a cloth shop.

Whatever had been going on in that shop stopped immediately as I walked in.

Dagger- eyes met me and I felt them pierce my skin but I kept my eyes forward and walked to a row of fabrics. I rubbed my finger over one of them, pretending to examine it closely. But I was shaking. Inside and out. How long could I do this? I felt like crying.

I tried to pretend what everyone else thought didn't matter at all to me. And it didn't for the most part.

But there were those times when I felt strangers, or even people I knew, stare and I couldn't take it. Maybe it was because now, I'm so alone. I have no one to run to when I'm hurt- no Will to hold me so I can cry, no Dad to tell me he'll always be there for me- I have no one.

It seems dreadfully simple, that thought and I feel a single tear run a straight line down my face.

And then I remember.

I hold my head up high and walk out of the shop, inexplicitly determined to find the one person I might still have.

_Jack._


	4. Thank Those Stars

It seems like I'm always crying. When Will is here, I have to fight hard to hold back tears, but I always can.

But now that he's gone, the tears flow freely. It makes me feel weak and womanly, but once they start I am powerless in the effort of stopping them and they run steady streams down my cheeks.

I had been searching all day, trying to find Jack. I don't know how I thought I would ever find him. My heart had sunk lower and lower in my chest, until finally I had given up. I had left. I pressed my fingernails into my palm, wishing the pain to come, as if a punishment for my failure.

And all the while the tears fell like rain, making my hair damp as I sit back in a rocking chair. I'd lost something else. Jack. I tried to picture his laugh and his cocky smile, but the memory of his voice escaped me. I cursed myself for growing older, for forgetting. How much more would I lose before I could finally have William again? Or would I lose him too?

Moonlight streams in through the window. It makes my already pale skin practically glow. I'm about to close my eyes when a shadow shifts across the window. Its bulk completely blocks out the moon for a second, and then everything returns to normal, as if it had never happened.

I take gentle steps to the window, mind racing. What could have been close enough to the window to completely block out all light? I looked down at the grass below the window. It was wet with rain, and in the mud there were small footsteps I would have missed if I hadn't been looking carefully.

My breath caught and I fought to remain calm. Someone was here, someone could be right in this house. I clutched my stomach, and for the first real time ever, I felt like a mother. A mother protecting her kids from whatever evil was right outside the door. I walked up the stairs as fast as my condition would allow me and pulled from a wooden cabinet at the top of the stairs a short dagger. I hid it in the folds of my dress, but not close to my stomach. Walking back down the stairs, I ran to the front door of the house and bolted it shut. I was walking away, heart beating furiously, when all of a sudden a knock came at the door.

Every muscle in my body froze, tense. Another knock came, this time to little raps as if the knocker was impatient. I took a step towards the door, fighting the voices in my head that told me to runaway. Who was at the door? Whoever it was, why were they knocking? If they wanted to hurt me, why didn't they just break in? My curiosity beat my common sense. My hand grasped the bolt and I pulled it away. I rested my hand on the door handle for a moment, then opened the door, holding up my dagger.

I gasped, my knife falling to the floor. Tears welled in my eyes. Jack stood before me, gold teeth glinting in a cocky smile and his hat maddeningly lopsided. I ran to him, and held him tight. I squeezed him, waiting for the tears to come. And they did, but they were different.

They were not tears of sadness, despair, or longing. They were tears of happiness, because some how, Jack had found me. Some how, by some sheer force of luck, the one man who I was looking for had found me.

"Shh, Lizzie. It's all okay, it'll be alright." he said.

And I believed him.


	5. From the Mirror, to Me

When I wake the next morning my hand immediately feels the bed next to me. It's instinct, something I've done every morning since that day six months ago when Will left me standing on the beach, ankle-deep in water after our final good-bye. It's like an unstoppable part of me that keeps wishing for this all to be just a bad dream, for Will to have never left at all, and for his strong hand to be their when my trembling one reaches over. But my hand falls on empty pillows and my heart slows, the hopeless anticipation ripped out of my body like a rug from underneath me.

It's only then that I reach for my stomach. The babies don't kick me in welcome, but they don't have to. I know that they are there and it is that fact that wills my feet to move, my body to wake.

I steady myself on the bedside table and let my wobbly legs strengthen themselves beneath me. From the secret drawer in the cabinet, I can feel the beat of a strong heart and it helps me regain the willpower I need in order to get through another day without him.

It's when I am walking down the stairs that I realize what is strange about this particular morning. The smell of eggs is coming from the kitchen, reaching my nose and making my stomach growl. I think back to last night, remembering it for the first time this morning and its' memory comes flooding back to me with an incredible force. How Jack Sparrow had incredibly found me, how he had told me everything was going to be all right. But that's where the memory fades, where I must have fallen asleep. The fuzziness of my brain urges me forward into the kitchen where, sure enough, Jack is waiting, holding a steaming pan of scrambled eggs.

"Morning, Lizzie!" he says brightly. He holds the eggs in my face and I take them, cautiously.

He furrows his dark eyebrows. "What?" he says. "Not enough cheese? Oh bugger, I knew something was wrong.."

"No," I say, softly.

"Well then what's wrong? Eat!"

I stared down at the eggs and picked my fork through them.

"What's wrong?" He asks again, his voice edged with annoyance.

I want to ask him the real question that's on my mind, but my mouth won't move. Instead it turns coward and mumbles feebly, "I didn't know you knew how to cook, Jack."

He rested his hands on the kitchen table, and sighed. "Well, I didn't want to learn for a while. The idea of putting rum in something in order to burn away the qualities that make a man drunk is very perplexing to me. But I figured next time I get mutinied upon by Barbossa I might as well be able to fry myself up a banana, or something far less squishy."

I laughed a small fake laugh. My hand was trembling and I didn't know why. I felt sad and disappointed and lonely and angry all at the same time. And all of a sudden the anger that was in me got swallowed up by a fierce pride, a will to be strong. For I was angry with myself because help had been offered to me, and here I was, lying in front of it, unable to move except for the silent shaking of my hand, and cowering in my own shell of a body.

My mouth and brain and _soul_ seemed to shake itself out of its reverie and moved with a speed that surprised the rest of me, forming the question moments ago I had been to afraid to ask.

"Why are you doing this, Jack?"

Jack looked down at his hands and instinctively reached for a non-existent glass of rum. He murmured something inaudible and looked up at me with the dark eyes of a guilty puppy that had just ate your shoe. "I felt... bad. There, I said it. I feel better for it. I felt bad."

"You felt bad? For what?"

"For you and William- I.. if I had just stabbed the bloody heart then none of us would have been in this mess and.."

My heart stopped. I tried to pretend to myself that I hadn't thought this thought multiple times, that I hadn't, in a dark moment, blamed Jack for everything. But I forced myself to say the words I was positive were true.

"Jack, if you had stabbed the heart Davy Jones would have stabbed Will as he was dying. And then I would never be able to see him. At least now I can see him-"

"In nine years." he interrupted.

His words went down like a knife.

"And for nine years I will continue to wait." I said, determinedly.

He still looked sullen, and I was stunned at the perplexity of the situation. How could this man, who had wronged many in the past, feel guilty? He had no right to feel guilty, I was the one who should feel guilty, not him. He hadn't been defeated by Davy Jones right before Will was killed. If it was anyone's fault it was mine.

Jack didn't move for a moment, then said, huskily, "After you left the ship, we went to Tortuga and I met my Dad there. Captain Teague." While Jack hadn't told me that Teague was his Dad, I had guessed it when I saw their encounter at Pirate's Cove, so I nodded.

"Well he made me think of what he had said before. How I had to live with myself forever." He shook his head and the beads in his hair jangled viciously. "And the only thing I could think of was when Will…" he mimed stabbing himself in the heart.

I laughed in spite of myself. Silence then covered the room like a blanket. I jabbed a part of the eggs with a fork and gingerly put it in my mouth. I smiled a little for Jack's benefit, but he began to walk towards the door. He was halfway there when I called out, "Jack?" I stood up and pushed my plate away and walked toward him, faster than I had walked in a long time. He turned to look at me, but didn't say anything.

"Thank you." I whispered, then stood on my tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, out of gratefulness for what he had done for me.

"Whatever you say, Lizzie." He walked up the stairway and took a right turn as if he owned the place.

"I'll be sleeping here!" he called and I heard a door shut.

I walked back to the eggs in the kitchen and quickly ate the rest of them. I was tired again, and wanted to go back to my room. Jack's hat lay on the floor in the kitchen. I picked it up, gently and walked with it back upstairs. I dropped it by the door outside his room, which already smelled like him, as if he had been there forever.

As I walked through the hall and back to my room, I couldn't help but spin around happily, my heart was on an incredible high. Jack had felt bad enough for Will and I that he had come to help. He had taken a break from the freedom of the sea to help me live through a part of my life that would have killed me had I been alone. And for that I was eternally grateful.

I lied down and folded my hands over my stomach.

"Thank you Jack." I said again.

I felt a kick from my stomach.


	6. Come Sun or Storm

A couple of weeks past. Living with Jack had made everything seem more bearable, the thoughts of Will were still there, but they were filled with hope and anticipation, not their usual sadness. The dark cloud hanging over me seemed to have been swept off my blue-sky life and I had gladly taken off my rain jacket. Everything around me seemed brighter and happier, the sun shone again.

Most of the time.

There were still those times where I couldn't stop crying or eating, times I felt mad for no reason. During one of these eating spells, where I had literally eaten half a pot of cinnamon rolls, Jack came up behind me and stared at me quizzically.

"These mood swings you are having," he said, with an air of an explorer on the edge of a discovery, "are they normal for you?"

I shook my head, surprised. "I don't have them often, no."

"Are they because of… err." He stared at the area below my large belly, in front of my hips.

"No, Jack. I'm not on my period. You don't have your period when you're pregnant…" A thought formed in my head that actually made me quite nervous. "Jack, you do know something about pregnancies, right? You'll help me conceive my children?"

"Well, I've only been to Singapore twice and they won't let me near the hospitals so.."

"You don't know anything? How they.. err.. come out?"

"Captain Teague always said that I popped out of Moms' stomach one day and that it surprised the both of them so I assumed.."

"Jack, I'm pretty sure the babies aren't going to pop out of my stomach."

I swallowed and my tongue felt dry. "Have you ever even seen someone give birth?"

Jack looked miffed, 'Well, I've seen pregnant women and-"

I raised one eyebrow, folded my arms- which was quite difficult over my huge stomach- and leaned on one hip, which was enough to silence Jack.

"No." he said.

"You've never seen one? I thought everybody has atleast once in their life at least experienced a-"

"Well you've seen one, so you can tell me how to do it!" he said, actually quite pleased.

I stared, incredulously, "I'm not going to yell instructions to you while I'm in labor! Jack, if you didn't know anything, why did you come?"

"Well if you don't want me here I'll leave."

The silence that followed could have been cut with a knife. I had wanted to say something, to reassure him that I needed him. Because I did need him, he made the days around here brighter and happier. He gave me hope. But my mouth couldn't form the words-I was too stunned at the idea of him leaving.

True to his word, he began towards the door. It was only later that I realized he had left all his things upstairs so that him walking toward the door was more of a want for gratitude than an actual threat. But at that moment I was petrified, torn in two at the thought of him leaving. The babies kicked inside me, and it jumpstarted me to life.

I heftily ran behind him and grabbed him by the elbow.

"Jack, don't go." He turned and looked at me. "I.. You've been a great help around here.. I need you… we need you, Jack." I said, rubbing my hand against my sizable bump.

He smiled, so I saw all his gold teeth. "I knew you come around to me in the end." he said, cockily. He walked past me and back up the stairs to his room.

"Wait, Jack? I know I need you here and all, we've established that, but that doesn't mean I'm entirely comfortable with you helping me give birth to my children when you've never done it before."

I heard his boots turn on the stair.

"We'll go into town later, then. And find a suitable... nurse."

And so it was later, and Jack and I were walking down the main street of Port Royal, finding our way to a narrow building which said 'DOCTOR' in large letters that at one point were white but were now a dusty brown.

I lightly knocked on the door with a rusty metal doorknocker. Anything harder than a light tap and the door might collapse in on itself. There was no answer.

"Hello?" I called, my voice sounding high and squeaky. Something didn't feel right here.

"Oh, well no ones home, too bad." Jack said, turning in his heels, but I put my hand out.

"Wait. I'm going in."

Jack murmured something behind me, which sounded an awful lot like "Sure, lets go in the creepy abandoned hospital and just see what happens."

The inside of the building smelled like dust and rotten wood. I stepped carefully, and looked around.

I had been here once before. It was right after we found Will, we brought him here so the doctor could treat the large burns on his back he had gotten when his ship was attacked and burned by the Black Pearl. The place had been some what busy then, several people waiting for their turn to see the doctor.

It was strange. If I hadn't been in this room before, I would never have thought it was a doctor's office. Sure, the table he had plopped Will down on was still there. The curtains I had been forced to wait outside of while Will was treated were still there, too but they were coated in dust. I moved my hand along it and little clouds floated into the air. Most of the benches were folded and the curtains had been ripped off the window.

Where was the doctor? Why was this place abandoned? Questions were flying about my head when all of a sudden out of nowhere a bang came from upstairs, followed by a high female scream. Jack and I looked at each other, before we both darted up the stairs.

We entered a small room. A man was standing in one corner while a girl, not much younger than me, shivered in the opposite corner. The man was holding a small pistol and smoke filled the window less room from the end of it. I followed the gun and clearly saw a small dent in the wood next to the girl where a bullet was lodged.

The man looked annoyed when Jack and I entered. He breathed, heavily and the smell of whiskey filled my nostrils and they burned like fire. The man stared, longingly, at the girl but then his eyes met mine and he smiled. His teeth were an unfriendly yellow.

"What fun." He said, in a low voice. Then he pointed the gun at me.

I wanted to grab my sword. All my instincts were for self-protection, but I reached and realized I'd left it at home. I looked back into the eyes of the yellow tooth man.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion. Until he pressed the trigger.


End file.
